SCIENCE BOX OVERVIEW
Kit #30
Name: “Sun-sational Energy”
Grade Level: 3-5
Content Strand: Environmental Sciences
Content Standard and Description: Ecosystems – Students will demonstrate an understanding that ecosystems display patterns of organization, change, and stability as a result of the interactions and interdependencies among life forms and the physical components of the Earth.
Summary: By using fun tools such as a solar dancer, soda cans, and thermometers, students will have loads of fun as they learn all about the sun and its massive amount of energy.
Learning Cycle Lesson Plans: Here is the list of the lesson plans in this kit.
1. “Our Sensational Sun” – This lesson introduces students to the power of the sun and how its energy affects life on earth.
2. “Fun With the Sun” – Using scientific method, and observational skills, students will discover reflection, absorption, and experimentation of the sun.
3. “Solar Power at Work” – This lesson examines how solar energy can work for us. A video shows students how energy from the sun can be collected and stored.
4. “Celebrating the Sun” – This lesson allows students to recap what they have learned about the sun and its energy. This lesson ends by eating a complete meal the students have prepared by using only solar energy.
What to Expect: By the end of this kit, teachers can expect their students to know the following: Third graders will be able to investigate and describe the variables that affect the survival of organisms within an ecosystem. Fourth graders will be bale to explain how the sun is the primary source of energy for nearly every ecosystem and that living things get what they need to survive from their environment. Finally the fifth graders will know all of that plus be able to investigate and describe how the major energy source in most ecosystems is sunlight which is converted…into…energy.
Evaluations: Here is what other teachers have said about this box.
1. “Thank you very much for the opportunity to use these boxes.”
2. “I really enjoyed this kit. My students were engaged and using science vocabulary with things other than the science lesson.”
3. “The students enjoyed the lessons and have learned a lot.”